I hope I’m not the only one unimpressed with the GOP line about how the Democrats are forcing everyone to buy private insurance-as if this wasn’t Romneycare writ large.

There would be a kind of public option – a Medicare buy-in – if just one Republican in the Senate had decided to vote for cloture instead of leaving it up to Joe Lieberman. A few more Republican votes, and there’d be a public option on the exchanges. Just three Republicans crossing over in the House Energy and Commerce committee, and it might have been a Medicare + 5% public option.

Because they refused to believe they couldn’t kill this bill, they did nothing to relieve its worst effects. And because none of them would stand with the Democratic populists, the Democratic oligarchists got everything they wanted.

Iâ€™ve been on a soapbox for months now about the harm that our overheated talk is doing to us. Yes it mobilizes supporters â€“ but by mobilizing them with hysterical accusations and pseudo-information, overheated talk has made it impossible for representatives to represent and elected leaders to lead. The real leaders are on TV and radio, and they have very different imperatives from people in government. Talk radio thrives on confrontation and recrimination. When Rush Limbaugh said that he wanted President Obama to fail, he was intelligently explaining his own interests. What he omitted to say â€“ but what is equally true â€“ is that he also wants Republicans to fail. If Republicans succeed â€“ if they govern successfully in office and negotiate attractive compromises out of office â€“ Rushâ€™s listeners get less angry. And if they are less angry, they listen to the radio less, and hear fewer ads for Sleepnumber beds.

So todayâ€™s defeat for free-market economics and Republican values is a huge win for the conservative entertainment industry. Their listeners and viewers will now be even more enraged, even more frustrated, even more disappointed in everybody except the responsibility-free talkers on television and radio. For them, itâ€™s mission accomplished. For the cause they purport to represent, itâ€™s Waterloo all right: ours.

Like it or lump it, NC-11 is a mostly Republican and right-leaning independent district. Shuler’s “no” vote will play well with his base. He’ll get re-elected.

PS: While you’re all celebrating the passage of this legislation, consider the limits to reproductive freedom that have been officially codified. Congress were more than happy to throw poor women under the bus in order to get this bill passed. This is not a victory; this is a giant leap backwards.

First, Howard Dean does say that the bill was written by insurance companies. But apart from a 24-hour period just after the cave-in to Lieberman, he supported the passage of this bill.

And once again, I say, if any Republican wanted to free Americans from an obligation to pay insurance premiums to Cigna, they could have voted for cloture when the Senate bill still contained a Medicare buy-in. At the very least, the GOP could have offered an amendment to strip out the mandate in their motion to recommit. That they chose to use it for anti-abortion grandstanding speaks volumes.

The majority of Democrats in Congress, believing that it was important to extend access to health insurance (and hopefully, with decent regulation, to health care), agreed to pay the tribute demanded by the insurance companies. Most conservatives – including the Republicans in Congress – felt it was better to leave things as they are, a situation that still looks pretty good for the insurance companies.